Black Friday Fun With Numbers

For your Black Friday enjoyment, I bring to you a special edition of Rick’s usual numbers post. Some of these might be scarier than normal, so hopefully this is not read with a heaping pile of leftover turkey in your mouth.

Cleveland Browns

12.7-24.6 – Average score of the 27 Steelers-Browns games since the 1999 season. Cleveland is just 4-23 in those games, after starting 2-2 in their first two years back.

20-63 (.241) – Overall record by the Browns in all division games, including playoffs, since returning in 1999. The team is 50-85 (.370) in all other games.

25.61 and 0.504– The Browns rank 30th in the NFL with just 25.61 yards per drive and 31st with 0.504 punts per drive this season. The league averages, respectively, are about 31 yards and 0.4 punts per drive, according to Football Outsiders.

11.2 and 1.0– The difference in points and turnovers in the games cornerback Joe Haden has played this season. The Browns are 2-3 in his five contests, allowing 17.8 yards and forcing 2.2 turnovers per game. On the flip side, they’re 0-5 in the games Joe has missed, allowing 29.0 points and forcing just 1.2 turnovers. Joe’s status remains up in the air for this Sunday’s game, as he was a limited practice participant again on Thursday.

Cleveland Cavaliers

100 – The Cleveland Cavaliers rank first – by a large margin – with 100 shots blocked in 11 games this year. No other team has more than 85 shots blocked. Leading the way for the Cavs, Tristan Thompson (15), Alonzo Gee (14) and Kyrie Irving (13) are three of the only 15 NBA players with at least 13 shots blocked.

53.3% – The efficiency field goal percentage allowed by the Cavs this year, second-worst in the league next to Portland’s 53.9%. League average is 48.5%. The formula is calculated by making three-pointers worth an extra point in the usual field goal percentage equation.

22.5% — Total rebound percentage by big man Anderson Varejao in his 11 games, best in the NBA (second place is a familiar name: J.J. Hickson of Portland at 22.4%). Varejao is second in the league with 13.7 rebounds per contest. He has already improved his rebounding average from 7.6 to 9.7 to 11.5 in the previous three seasons.

94.1 — Pace of the Cavs this season, third-highest in the NBA. Pace is an estimate of possessions per 48 minutes, and last season, the Cavaliers ranked right at the league average with a 91.3 pace mark.

Ohio State Buckeyes

28.5-19.3 – Average score of the last 11 Michigan-Ohio State football games, dating back to 2001. The Buckeyes are 9-2 during this span, and have won all five home games.

6.79 vs 2.96 -- Those are the rush yards per carry, respectively, by Carlos Hyde and Braxton Miller in Ohio State’s last two games. Hyde, the junior running back who has emerged as the clear starter this year, has 33 carries for 224 yards and five touchdowns in the wins over Illinois and Wisconsin. Miller, the struggling sophomore quarterback who somehow remains in the Heisman race, has just 121 yards on 41 carries and one touchdown during this span.

152.2 – Passing yards allowed per game by the Michigan defense, best in FBS college football this season. The Buckeyes rank 103rd in the nation with only 180.8 passing yards, so you’ll likely see the team focusing on the run mostly, per usual, in order to establish an offensive presence early on Saturday.

+15.1 — Urban Meyer’s margin of victory in end-of-regular-season rivalry games in his 10 college football head coaching seasons. His rivals over the years: Toledo (with Bowling Green), BYU (with Utah) and Florida State (with Florida). He’s lost only two of those games: 24-42 against Toledo in 2002, his second and final year with BG, and 7-31 versus Florida State in 2010, his last season with the Gators.

Jacob Rosen is a long-time contributor to WaitingForNextYear. He's also a writer online at SportsAnalyticsBlog and Nylon Calculus . An Akron native, Jacob is a current MBA student at the University of Oregon's Warsaw Sports Marketing Center. You can follow him on Twitter @WFNYJacob or e-mail him at udjrosen(at)gmail(dot)com.